View full sizeDavid Gazzier, 34, is accused of making a terrorist threat against Dixon Elementary School in Irvington.

MOBILE, Alabama – A man accused of threatening to “shoot up” Dixon Elementary School in Irvington earlier this month had his bail increased to $25,000 for making a terrorist threat.

Irvington resident David Gazzier, 34, was also sentenced to 60 days in jail for receiving stolen property on Sept. 23, when he was found by Bayou La Batre police sitting in his car with a stolen shotgun.

Gazzier, dressed in a Mobile County Metro Jail jumpsuit, stood in District Court Judge Bob Sherling’s courtroom as the prosecution and defense attorney Jeff Deen discussed his immediate future.

Bayou La Batre Police Detective Gene Lofton told Sherling about officers responding to a call before 8 a.m. on Nov. 6. A woman Lofton identified as Gazzier’s son’s grandmother was at Dixon Elementary claiming the defendant had just showed up at her house and said, “If you want to see (the son) again, go get him because I’m fixing to shoot the (expletive) school up.”

The result of the threat was a “soft lockdown” of the school, Lofton said. He defined the term as meaning that all the doors of the school were locked and no one was allowed in. Parents were allowed to check their children out, however, as officers patrolled the school grounds, he said.

The grandmother then went to the school to report the incident, he said.

Shortly after responding at Dixon, a harassment call came in to dispatch from Gazzier’s neighbors, according to Lofton. He said that neighbors were reporting Gazzier was telling them, “if anyone came up to talk to him he would shoot them too.”

A short time later, police entered his residence on Creekside Drive South in Irvington and detained him, transporting him to the Bayou La Batre police station for questioning.

Lofton said that, under questioning, Gazzier told investigators there was “a hit on him from the mafia” and that people, including his son, could read his mind. The defendant also said he had a device that could read minds, as well, Lofton said.

“The whole conversation went back and forth to his mind-reading machine and the mafia,” Lofton told the judge.

He added that Gazzier told the police, “When I get mad, I black out.”

Gazzier was later arrested and charged with making a terrorist threat, harassment and possessing drug paraphernalia.

Lawyers on both sides told Sherling that Gazzier did have some mental issues that needed to be addressed, and the judge agreed to take it into consideration should the defendant seek inpatient help.

“It looks to me like the jail is a depository for what used to be sent to Searcy,” Sherling said, referring to the state mental hospital in Mount Vernon shut down in Sept. 2012.

Gazzier had been out on $1,000 bond for each of the three Nov. 6 charges, but Sherling increased that amount to $25,000 and sent them to a grand jury for possible indictment. He also ordered the defendant to immediately begin serving the 60-day sentencing for receiving stolen property, which could change if he seeks professional help, the judge said.